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"Journey Wise" with Shane Stanford · The Weight

• 0:00
  Chris McAlilly: I'm Chris McAlilly.
• 0:01
  Eddie Rester: I'm Eddie Rester.
• 0:01
  Eddie Rester: Welcome to The Weight. Today our guest is one of my long term friends, Shane Stanford. Shane has been a pastor in United Methodist churches in Mississippi, Florida, most recently in Christ United Methodist Memphis. Now he is the president and CEO of the Moore-West Center for Applied Theology. And he's publishing a new book, as part of his work called "JourneyWise." He's published 19 books across the years. But this new one's coming out, really a very personal book, just like most of his books are. Chris, tell me what about the conversation today was important for you?
• 0:41
  Chris McAlilly: JourneyWise, is a phrase. It's wisdom that comes out of Shane's family. He'll tell you about that. But I think I was reminded of the power of the things that can only be learned on the way, you know, as you both live out your story.
• 1:00
  Chris McAlilly: And as you accumulate the wisdom of life lived. I think the other thing is his just deep confidence in the capacity of Jesus. Not only to be a Lord and savior for a person's life, but to come alongside a person as a friend and a healer, in the midst of very broken personal circumstances, whether they be physical health, emotional, spiritual health. And that's all, you know, wisdom that comes out of his story, which we'll get to hear today on the episode. What about you?
• 1:42
  Eddie Rester: Yeah, you know, I've known Shane a long time.
• 1:45
  Eddie Rester: And his story always amazes me, and you're gonna get to hear that story as the podcast begins. But it's one where there weren't just one or two blows along the way, but multiple blows along the way, and his ability to learn and grow from them, to allow the grace and power of Christ to really give him the strength to move from one season to the next. His story alone is encouraging. But he has a lot of wisdom to share out of that. And that's what I'm thankful for is that it's not just wisdom that he holds tightly, but he shares not as the final say, but here's a way to look at life. And I think that's one of the things that I really appreciate about his story and his gentleness.
• 2:35
  Eddie Rester: I think he's going to offer a lot. Have a look at the Beatitudes. He's going to offer a lot, just some different resources along the way. So I think if you're listening today, and you're facing something difficult, I think this is gonna be an episode for you. Or if you know somebody who's struggling through something right now, I think this is gonna be an episode you're gonna want to share with them.
• 2:57
  Chris McAlilly: Thanks for being with us, as always on the podcast. And like it, share it with a friend. Leave us a review on whichever platform you listen on. It'll help folks find the podcast. We always are grateful that you're on the journey with us on The Weight.
• 3:13
  Chris McAlilly: [INTRO] Life can be heavy. So heavy, in fact that the weight we carry can sometimes cause us to lose hope.
• 3:21
  Eddie Rester: But we've all come across those people in life who seem to be experiencing the same world we live in, except they maintain a great depth of joy and hope.
• 3:30
  Chris McAlilly: A former generation called this gravitas.
• 3:32
  Chris McAlilly: It was their description of a soul that had gained enough weightiness to be attractive, like all things with a gravitational pull.
• 3:41
  Eddie Rester: Those are the people we want to talk to. On this podcast, we talk to pastors, entrepreneurs, artists, mental health experts, and many others.
• 3:51
  Chris McAlilly: We'll create space for heavy topics. But we'll be listening for quality of soul that could be called gravitas.
• 3:57
  Eddie Rester: Welcome to The Weight. [END INTRO] We're here today with Shane Stanford. Shane Stanford is a longtime friend of mine, so I'm really excited about the conversation today. He's been a United Methodist pastor in Mississippi, Florida, and most recently in Memphis, Tennessee, and stepped out of the pastor now. We'll talk a little bit about what he's doing now in just a few minutes. But Shane, welcome to the podcast.
• 4:21
  Shane Stanford: Thank you. I'm very excited to be here. Thanks for the invitation.
• 4:24
  Eddie Rester: Yeah, and we're going to have the rule that we're not going to share stories about each other. How's that gonna work?
• 4:29
  Shane Stanford: I will not tell anything about your Superman pajamas that you used to wear to conference. I will not say anything about them. I promise.
• 4:38
  Eddie Rester: Thank you. That's going to be, I think, helpful.
• 4:40
  Chris McAlilly: Shane, you may need to just to stay on at the end of this and Eddie, you can leave and I'll get the storie. I accumulate them through time, Shane, just, you know, stories, pictures. And it's, you know, Eddie makes so many enemies across time and space. I just, I mean, I don't have to work with very hard to get them. And so I look forward to receiving those on the back end of this recording.
• 5:04
  Shane Stanford: I will be glad to share anything I can.
• 5:08
  Eddie Rester: One of my daughters has been sharing pictures with Chris through the years. So
• 5:11
  Shane Stanford: Oh.
• 5:12
  Chris McAlilly: Oh, yeah, there's some that I've not shared with the public. And, you know, for the right price, audience, listener out there you guys just let me know. And Cody, I think--he's our producer--we'll put a strategic plan in place. We'll release these, a slow drip of these pictures.
• 5:33
  Shane Stanford: Nice. Yes, I've had my share of pictures released, too. So I understand that.
• 5:40
  Eddie Rester: Shane, for those who don't know you, I mean, you've been a great pastor.
• 5:43
  Eddie Rester: You've been a writer across the years. But your work really comes out of your story. So for those who don't know you and your story, just share just a bit about what your life has been, some of the things that you've experienced across your years.
• 6:00
  Shane Stanford: Be glad to yeah.
• 6:00
  Shane Stanford: My narrative is really what defines me. And I know all of our stories define us, but mine is, I came to realize that very early. Grew up hemophiliac, which is a person who doesn't clot or heal well. Most people understand the clotting part, but they don't realize that any injury I sustain, it never really goes back to normal. And so we were treated with blood transfusions, medicines made of human blood in order to stop.
• 6:31
  Shane Stanford: And I was just mild enough as a hemophiliac that I thought I was a normal boy. And so I would do all the stupid things that you shouldn't do when you're a hemophiliac, and I would get hurt a lot. And now I'm paying.
• 6:47
  Shane Stanford: 40 years later, I'm paying for that. I walk around like I'm 90 years old, and, you know, can't really stand up straight.
• 6:54
  Shane Stanford: But the main thing that happened is that at the age of 16, we discovered, and this is 1986, we discovered that the medicines used to treat my hemophilia were contaminated with HIV and I was HIV positive. And then two years later, we discovered that I was Hep C positive, which attacks the liver. And this was all pre AZT. There were no medicines out at the time for HIV. And it was, I have to say, it was a time of great fear. I had a lot of people that were there for me, parents and a couple of friends.
• 7:26
  Shane Stanford: You're a walking medical book, is what you are.
• 7:30
  Shane Stanford: But other than that, we couldn't tell anybody. In fact, we were told by doctors and social workers, "Do not share your HIV status," because they were burning down houses in Florida--the Ray family, of course, people know Ryan White.
• 7:46
  Shane Stanford: I've had the privilege of speaking at several events with Ryan White's mother, and she'll tell the story. Ryan and I were six months apart in age and so he would be my age today if he had lived. But HIV really sort of defined me and at the same time, the reason they tested me was because I was going through eye surgery. I had corneal transplants in both eyes, another disease. You know, I'm a smorgasbord of fine diseases.
• 8:20
  Shane Stanford: Most of my doctors will say that they've heard of everything I have, they've just never heard of it coming together. And so.
• 8:29
  Shane Stanford: And I have some great doctors over the years, one being Nancy Tatum that I know some people remember. But anyway. I went to college. Got married. My wife, who's Pokey, and I were high school sweethearts. And because we were told that we didn't have much time, we went on and got married at 19, something that I would never let my daughters do.
• 8:48
  Shane Stanford: And I've had two go marry, but they had to wait till they were 21.
• 8:56
  Shane Stanford: But the thing that happened is we really got into a race with time. It just felt like I was at war with time all over, but I kept staying healthy. My numbers were getting worse, but I was not getting opportunistic infections is what really kills people with AIDS. And so technically I had AIDS because my T-cell count was below 200.
• 9:17
  Shane Stanford: But I didn't have the infections. So I decided to finish college, decided I was gonna go on to law school. I applied to law school at Duke, got into law school at Duke, and then felt a call to ministry. I had to wait a year before I could go because my wife was a year behind in college.
• 9:36
  Shane Stanford: And so we waited. And during that time, I applied--and you will remember this, Eddie--for the joint JD/M.Div program. It took me only about two months to realize that's the dumbest thing I've ever done. Dropped the JD part, although I did get to be in an interdisciplinary seminar with six medical students, six law students, six theology students. And the sad thing is that when everybody walked across the stage, they were going to jobs that would pay a lot more than when I walked across the stage. And so I've still kept up with them. And they've done great.
• 10:10
  Shane Stanford: But the main thing happening there is that in order for me to be ordained, I was going through the ordination process and Mississippi while I was there, I had to take a physical. And when And this is still, like, early 90s, mid 90s.
• 10:22
  Shane Stanford: they took the blood, they asked if I had any contamination, and turns out, you know, of course, I was HIV positive, Hep C positive. And I went to... The couple of DSes came to town in Durham to visit ministers, and they asked me if I could drive them back to the hotel. And I did not know that waiting in the hotel room were the Chair of the Board of Ministry for Mississippi and a couple of more DSes. And they had all come to Early 90s, mid 90s. Yeah, '94.
• 10:49
  Shane Stanford: And it's still very uncertain in say, look, this is going to be hard, and you may not get approved to be ordained because no one had ever openly tried to be ordained as an HIV positive person in the United Methodist Church.
• 11:11
  Shane Stanford: a lot of people's eyes. I go through the process. Had a doctor stand up who was on the Board of Ministry at the time.
• 11:19
  Shane Stanford: Her name was Nancy Tatum. She just happened to be my doctor.
• 11:23
  Shane Stanford: And she had been seeing HIV patients for a while. And what happened was is during that process, there really was this confirmation in me that I was called to ministry. I had, I really had struggled about law and theology for a long time, didn't know if I wanted to go on for my PhD. And I'd had some encouragement to do that. But during the process, I really felt the Spirit saying, "This is what you're supposed to do." And it was a close vote. I got in by the skin of my teeth.
• 11:58
  Shane Stanford: I came home back to Mississippi to start ministry and thought I was going to get appointed to a little church outside of Hattiesburg, and was going for my covenant meeting on Monday night. And on Sunday, that church met and voted not to take me. And some of the comments was, "He wouldn't be able to baptize our children." There's one guy said, "I'd rather burn the parsonage down than him live in it." And of course, I go to see our Bishop at the time thinking that he's just going to help me get something else. And he said, "No, you need to go to that covenant meeting." And I told that bishop, "You're crazy.
• 12:33
  Shane Stanford: I don't want to go down to these folks." But I went on and, Eddie, it still remains one of the most touching moments of my life.
• 12:39
  Shane Stanford: Because the people who had the courage to show up were crushed, because they knew their church was doing something that was not the way the gospel works. And I've actually kept in touch with that family since 1994. I mean, it's been a long time, but so...
• 12:59
  Shane Stanford: Just, I know I'm taking too long. I'm sorry.
• 13:04
  Shane Stanford: I became an associate, because I didn't have anywhere else to go, at my family's or my wife's home church. Stayed there a couple of years and a great DS nameed Hank Winstead asked if I would be interested in being a church planter. And I said, I didn't even, I know nothing about church planting. And he said,"Aw, it can't be that hard." And so he sends me.
• 13:25
  Eddie Rester: Well, he had done it.
• 13:26
  Shane Stanford: I know. That's right. He had done it. And he sends me out to be a church planter. Planted Asbury in the city of Petal, which is next door to Hattiesburg, and just fell in love with that congregation and those people and had a great, long ministry there. And then, and this is in the book, "JourneyWise." My wife and I are very open about it. My wife had an affair while she was at Southern Miss that about broke us up. It was terrible.
• 13:55
  Shane Stanford: And it happened at the end of my tenure at Asbury. And she wanted to reconcile. I wanted to reconcile, and I realized that I couldn't be in pulpit ministry during that healing time.
• 14:09
  Shane Stanford: And so I got a job working for the Foundation in Mississippi.
• 14:13
  Shane Stanford: And that was, at that moment, that I really had some book ideas, and so I threw out an idea to a friend of mine who was one of the publishers at Abington Cokesbury about the seven interactions with Jesus after the resurrection. I called it "The Seven Next Words," and that became the first of what is now 19 books later. Writing has become a real central part of of my ministry and how I do that.
• 14:43
  Shane Stanford: And so it's been... So, I don't how much you want me to go.
• 14:48
  Shane Stanford: We... During that time, the medicines used to treat my HIV caused my triglycerides to go to 3,000. Ended up with a blockage, 99% blockage in the lower anterior descending, the Widowmaker. Had to have open heart surgery, which they didn't know if they could control the bleeding because of the hemophilia.
• 15:09
  Shane Stanford: After that, I actually maxed out my insurance coverage. That was back in the day where insurance coverages had maximums. I was getting medicine for my hemophilia at a clinic. This is 61 days after surgery. They come in and take the needle out because I had run out of insurance money. And I will tell you one of the reasons I love the Methodist Church is the treasurer at the time. And Chris, your dad was on the cabinet at the time, almost surely. Either that at First Tupelo. But he was working in finance. And they raised the maximum at that Annual Conference from one to $2 million, so that I could get continued treatment. We didn't tell anybody that but that's what they did. And that's my love for this church, because I could not have done this in any other denomination. But I could do it in the United Methodist Church.
• 16:03
  Chris McAlilly: I wonder if...
• 16:03
  Chris McAlilly: You made a comment in the midst of your story. And first off, thank you so much for sharing your story. I knew bits and pieces of it, But I had not heard all of that. You had a moment where you said "that's not how the gospel works." And I wonder if you would maybe speak to how does the gospel work?
• 16:24
  Chris McAlilly: When did you get a glimpse of what it means for the gospel to work?
• 16:32
  Shane Stanford: You know, I have found that the gospel being the embodiment, which is just the embodiment of Jesus. When you think about what God did through Jesus, I think a lot of us get caught up in the majesty of it.
• 16:43
  Shane Stanford: But really, the gospel is very personal and intimate because the God of the universe decided to become like us. The incarnation in itself, it should make the hair stand up on your arms every time you think of it.
• 17:00
  Shane Stanford: Because in that process, God also took on all the human frailty and all the human struggles that we have. And so the gospel is very much about connecting us, not just to God but to each other. So if God takes time to learn what it's like for humans to walk the earth and to struggle and to deal with pain, why do we not take time to do it?
• 17:23
  Shane Stanford: And that's what Jesus modeled in the Gospels. He met people where they were. He loved them. But he never left them there, either.
• 17:31
  Shane Stanford: He always helped them to be better. Now, my favorite encounter with Jesus is Mark 1, where the leper is at the gate.
• 17:39
  Shane Stanford: He's heard a lot, apparently a lot about Jesus, starts hollering, you know, "Hey, Lord, Lord!" And the disciples, of course, are all freaked out. He runs up to Jesus and says, "If you are willing, you can make me well." And Jesus, and I've, a lot of people read it, "Of course. I'm willing." I don't think it's like that. I think Jesus goes, "Of course I'm willing." You know "What? That's why I'm here." And so I say that to answer your question. The gospel is, yes, about Jesus being Lord and Savior. But it's very much about Jesus being your friend, and how God decided to cross that.
• 18:19
  Shane Stanford: I just had the privilege of interviewing for my podcast, David Wilkerson, who is the the principal at St. John's in Durham University in England. He is an astrophysicist and a theologian. He has PhDs in both from Cambridge. And he just started talking about the universe. And I understood, Eddie, about 10% of what he was saying.
• 18:45
  Eddie Rester: Yeah.
• 18:45
  Shane Stanford: You understand what I'm saying? But he would then come back and he'd say,"Boy, isn't Jesus good? Isn't Jesus wonderful? Isn't he a good guy?" Talking like he lives down the street on the corner, and everybody gets to pass him on the street. And so I was just so amazed by that. In fact, David Wilkerson is the guy who got Stephen Hawking in a debate to admit he didn't know what happened before the Big Bang, that it could be God who did that. So this was a serious fellow. But, Chris, I think the gospel for me is embodied in that sense of walking in the presence of Jesus as a friend.
• 19:23
  Chris McAlilly: I appreciate you saying that. And I, you know, I also appreciate the ways in which you expressed for yourself, for your own, in your own story, the church, and particularly in this case, we're talking about the United Methodist Church, through the 80s, 90s, 2000s stayed with you through a lot. And, you know, I'm very well aware of all the ways in which the United Methodist Church is broken and just like any other church or institution, it has its failings and it doesn't always do that for every person every time.
• 19:59
  Chris McAlilly: That's the case for any denomination, Presbyterian, Baptist, Episcopalian Catholic.
• 20:05
  Chris McAlilly: The church in America, I feel like it's losing, especially among the the next generation, its connection between the gospel and the teachings of Jesus. And the next generation has less and less trust that the church is connected to how the gospel works. And I just wonder how you see this particular cultural moment as we seek to bear witness to the gospel within the church for the next generation.
• 20:33
  Shane Stanford: Well, Barna just released its study, major study at post pandemic. And what they found is that the message is not the problem. It's the method.
• 20:40
  Shane Stanford: 70% of non-Christians have a favorable view of Jesus. Only 15% of them have a favorable view of Jesus's church. And that tells the story right there. The mission of the organization that I lead, the Center for Applied
• 20:58
  Theology and JourneyWise: to equip people, to love Jesus, and love like Jesus in the world.
• 21:02
  Theology and JourneyWise: That's it. And so all of our resources, all of our programs, our servant school channel, everything is focused on how do I get a person into an intimate, ongoing journey with Jesus every day. And we've got some things that we're doing.
• 21:17
  Theology and JourneyWise: But the book "JourneyWise," Chris, that I'm previewing right now, it really is a story about trying to be real, and trying to be present, and not worry about what everybody else is thinking, but really think, "Well, what didJesus... What does Jesus think?" And we've all heard the question, "What would Jesus do?" And what I say at the very front of the book, is that, really, that's the wrong question.
• 21:42
  Theology and JourneyWise: Because you can't say, "What would Jesus do?" unless you actually spend time looking at what he did. You know? And so most of us would ask that question, and then go to some Bozo who gave an answer that really was so odd. And we see that right now so much in our culture, pastors who are doing such a disgrace to the Gospel, because they're up there spreading these, just things that Jesus would never talk about. He would never discuss it that way. He would never do that. And it just frustrates me.
• 22:13
  Theology and JourneyWise: But again, the message isn't the problem. So.
• 22:18
  Eddie Rester: Shane, you've mentioned "JourneyWise" a couple of times, and I know, that's the title of your new book that you're putting out. Tell us though, what that means to you, where that word came from.
• 22:30
  Eddie Rester: Because I know it has a special kind of background for you. Tell us about that.
• 22:36
  Shane Stanford: My grandmother, my mother's mother, used that phrase. And my mother came from very poor family, you know, just really poor, and a lot of struggle, but used that phrase my whole young, early life, journey wise, "I want to be journey wise." And when I asked her about it, she reminded me that my grandfather was actually murdered when she was pregnant with my youngest uncle. And she was basically destitute. And she would ride... She decided she wanted to be a teacher, and so four young children at home. You know, she had some extended family helping her but she would ride an hour both ways up to the school, Mississippi Southern at the time, the University of Southern Mississippi, and became a teacher. And she taught second grade for 40 years. And she would always say to me, Eddie, she said, "I would rather be journey wise than be born the wisest person on the planet, because I learn something from every step, from every mile, from every situation.""You matter," which is the title of my podcast, and the title that was part of our slogan that we use to Christ Church Memphis, came from my grandfather, when he found out about my HIV status. We had played golf. He got me over to the side and said, "So what are you going to do with this thing?" He didn't even say it out loud. He, I don't think he could bring himself to say it. I was the apple of my grandfather's eye.
• 24:01
  Shane Stanford: And all my cousins will tell you that, you know, I'm surprised they didn't kill me and leave me in the woods somewhere, but they're good people. But he said, "What are you gonna do with this thing?" And I said, "I don't know." I mean, I'm 16 years old. And I've been told I have maybe two or three years to live. And he said, "Well, I love you so much, so if you want to get in the corner and cry about it, I'll go with you." He said,"But I don't think you're going to do that. I think you're going to make every day matter." And, and that's what I realized that no matter how many steps we have in this world, every step means something and can mean something. But we have to be intentional to do that. So I hope that answers your question.
• 24:39
  Eddie Rester: Yeah. So as you think about this, be journey wise. How does that play into...
• 24:42
  Eddie Rester: I know you're writing about the Beatitudes, Jesus's words in Matthew chapter five. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are those who are persecuted. How does this understanding of journey wise play into how you read the Beatitudes?
• 25:03
  Shane Stanford: Well, I'll give you a couple of examples. The first blessing or beatitudes,"Blessed are those who are poor in spirit," Jesus isn't talking about financial. He's talking about spiritual life. He uses the word "poor." There's two words for "poor" in Greek. One is like what I tell people having three daughters. I won't have as much money as I need, but I've got enough to pay the bills. Jesus used the word for"destitute." He says, "Unless you are destitute in the Spirit," which means the more you empty of yourself, the more God is able to fill up and so the more that is God in you, that is where your wealth comes from. And so I think we start there.
• 25:41
  Shane Stanford: I think the Beatitudes, Eddie, are sequential. I think you start at the beginning. There's a reason they're in the order that they are. The first one saying, you know what? It doesn't matter how much you want to do it. If you don't provide the space for God in your life, then it's not going to happen.
• 25:55
  Shane Stanford: "Blessed are those who mourn." I've lost a lot of people in my life, a lot of close people, as a pastor. I've done funerals for babies that died as infants, for a four year old. One of the one's that probably affected me the most was a four-year-old, fell into their grandparents' pool, drowned. The mother was so shaken. She called me before she called the ambulance, because I was right next door. I get there, jump in the pool. And I'll never forget that.
• 26:22
  Shane Stanford: Mourning, though. Jesus says"you will be comforted." But he's not saying that he likes death and he likes the difficulty. Mourning comes to...
• 26:28
  Shane Stanford: The greater mourning is, the greater you've invested to love.
• 26:32
  Shane Stanford: And he's saying be bold enough to love so that mourning becomes the risk. But it's worth it if you are able to risk that. And so that's part of this journey.
• 26:45
  Shane Stanford: He's talking about things that happen to us on the path, things that can be adjusted, that can make us understand and walk that path faithfully, and things that we will encounter.
• 26:58
  Shane Stanford: And he goes on to talk about, you know, being hungry and thirsty for righteousness. And he's not talking about, "I haven't had enough to eat." He says you haven't had anything to eat or drink. And now what would a hungry, thirsty man do? He's going to do anything he can to get that food. Well, that's how you should look at being righteous. Be a peacemaker, not just a peace lover. I love this one. Because so many times people will talk about peace.
• 27:22
  Shane Stanford: But if you don't work for it, it's meaningless. And so much of life is about that. But then he goes into the final one that says, and if you do all seven of these, they're gonna persecute you for it. Jesus really isn't the best motivator, speaker.
• 27:38
  Eddie Rester: You want to start out with a nice story maybe.
• 27:41
  Shane Stanford: Yeah, a poem, maybe. He doesn't do that. He goes right to the point and says, But blesed are you for being persecuted. Blessed are you for struggling. Blessed are you if the road gets long, because you are the children.
• 28:01
  Shane Stanford: You are my children. And so I found that connection. And let me tell you this, I didn't say this. But when my grandmother died, the reason beatitudes became so important to me is that by her bed, in her Bible, she had five translations of the Beatitudes. I stole her Bible.
• 28:17
  Shane Stanford: I'll admit this on the podcast.
• 28:22
  Shane Stanford: I didn't ask the cousins, aunts, uncles.
• 28:23
  Eddie Rester: Confession.
• 28:23
  Eddie Rester: Confession is good for the soul.
• 28:25
  Shane Stanford: I just stuck it in the back of my jeans and just went on. And I pinned those five translations up on the board in my office and read them every day for a year. And that's where the book came from. It was God opening up these very powerful completions of questions that I had always had. But again, I was writing this book, when I first started this book, it was during our marriage crisis. It was during a lot of transition in my life. We had been appointed to a church in Florida that I didn't know at the time, but I was the fifth senior pastor in nine years. And they had a lot of struggle, a lot of issues. And so the Beatitudes became very important to me about how I personally were able to live out these blessings.
• 29:16
  Chris McAlilly: What does it mean? What does it mean to be blessed? You know, I do think this is how you live out the blessings but "blessed," you know... I mean the kids talk about being hashtag blessed you know, there's a... I guess adults do it as well.
• 29:31
  Eddie Rester: Every good vacation every good moment in life is hashtag blessed.
• 29:35
  Chris McAlilly: Yeah, I just wonder, when you think of being blessed, either a moment in your own life or when you see it in in the world, what does it actually look like for God's blessing to be with a person or with a place?
• 29:49
  Shane Stanford: Len Sweet used an example one time, and he and I right now are working on a, just met last week about a book that has a lot to do with these changes, these challenges and crisis. But he uses this illustration. He says, you know, if you're drowning, and someone throws you the life jacket, you're blessed to have that life jacket. Now you may not think that you're blessed. You're drowning still. You still have to get to shore. But you have a life jacket. That's a blessing.
• 30:18
  Shane Stanford: It's really Jesus is saying, you're going to face these things. You're going to face conflict within yourself. You're going to face loss. You're going to face struggle, people who don't want peace. The blessing is, but he always says, but "you are." That's the blessing. It's personal. You're with him.e's with you. That's the blessing, is that we don't do this alone.
• 30:41
  Shane Stanford: I tell people all the time, the older I get, the more I realize what a wretched, just horrible person I can be sometimes, and that I am not enough, but I know the one who is. And that's really what the Beatitudes remind us.
• 30:55
  Eddie Rester: You know, I think about how some folks have written about them in the past,"the be happy attitudes." And that really misses the point of them. Because it's not about doing something that makes you happy. It's about how you experience the things that life gives to you. And how God is able to work through those things.
• 31:16
  Shane Stanford: I love that.
• 31:16
  Shane Stanford: That's perfect.
• 31:19
  Eddie Rester: You talk about, as you write, you talk about living from the outside, in. And I know when I was in college, the guy named Larry Crabb wrote a book called "Inside Out," living from the inside out, but you say we live from the outside in. Talk to us a bit about that.
• 31:38
  Shane Stanford: We should live from the inside out. I did a lot of work and spent many years in Marriage and Family Therapy, got a certificate in MFT, and would start seeing clients while I was pastoring. And the first thing I noticed is that they couldn't live inside-out because they were living so much outside-in.
• 31:59
  Shane Stanford: They were letting external factors define who they were.
• 32:03
  Shane Stanford: And when you start letting things outside of you define who you are, the inside--the heart, the soul, the emotions, the mind--it just is trying to play catch up, because that is so foreign to how we've been created. You know, God gives Adam a name and says to Adam,"You are these things," you know. He does that. He shares it. But thing that I think is important to know is that he says it's good, but it's not great.
• 32:30
  Shane Stanford: this is awesome." But it was also... Not because Eve was outside, she was different, but that if she's living inside out, and he's living inside out, you've got this balance of creation, basically, is the picture that we see. Sin is the imbalance of creation. It's creation in unbalanced ways, creating an unsettledness and a separation from God, that defines who we are, so that we're always running behind the things that are happening outside to us. And there are several Christian therapists now that are starting to talk a lot about this. It's similar to cognitive behavioral therapy.
• 33:17
  Shane Stanford: Looking at the circumstances that you're in, can you make direct changes and alterations so that you are living more inside-out? It's a wonderful conversation right now.
• 33:29
  Chris McAlilly: How do you think about, kind of this... Thinking about the ways in which you're trying to infuse the conversation among Christians online and through the content that you're creating and through the the teachings that you guys are doing through the Center for Applied Theology and through the press... I guess, how are you thinking about the position of the work that you're doing and kind of its trajectory to not only produce a book, or have one conversation here and there... I guess, what's the vision that you see in the next five or 10 years? Where are you hoping to go with the work that you're doing?
• 34:06
  Shane Stanford: Well, we want to create a strong, solid foundation of resources that all of them are focused on helping people be in relationship with Jesus. Our big product that's coming, it's four books, four 90-day devotionals that make 360 days. It's one year. We took the gospels and the first chapter of Acts. We put them into chronological, narrative order.
• 34:32
  Shane Stanford: And so the story of Jesus is told in 360 encounters. You read all four gospels and the first chapter of Acts in one year. We have Bible studies that you can use in Sunday school that focus on the theme of that week. We have sermon starters. We have things called Table Talk. So this is where I was going with this Chris.
• 34:51
  Shane Stanford: In the middle of the week, we have a pediatrician on staff Dr.
• 34:55
  Shane Stanford: Ronnie Kent and his son James is a counseling psychologist. He's on staff. They created Table Talks, so that in the middle of the week, when it's hard, you're four days removed from having been in church, can't remember the worship music. What you can remember, though, is if I get around this table, and I'm in relationship with others who belong to Jesus, I will be able to find hope and strength to make the rest of the week happen. That's what we want. We want people to learn how to love Jesus and love like Jesus in the world. And we think this curriculum is going to be fantastic. We beta tested it at Frazer Church in Montgomery, they're in the fourth leg of it.
• 35:35
  Shane Stanford: So they're in the fourth book.
• 35:37
  Shane Stanford: And the number one thing we get back in our reviews is that with everybody doing the same Sunday School focus, the youth and the children are doing it, too, everybody reading the same thing every day, the sermons are focused on it. It's the word unity. And I'll say this. I think our church is craving unity so much right now, because of all the disunity that's happening. The kind of unity and healing we're talking about cannot be found any other place other than the relationship with Jesus. And Ronnie Kent, he's my best friend, he always says it's about relationship. It's about first our relationship with him, and then our relationship with each other. That's what we want to raise up to the surface. We don't want to try to be... We don't want to compete with anybody. We don't want to try to be something we're not. We're not trying to copy. We want people to be walking with Jesus.
• 36:31
  Shane Stanford: We want an Emmaus moment where the veil is lifted, and it goes on for one solid year, because I think it transforms every year after that.
• 36:43
  Eddie Rester: And anybody who is in recovery work will tell you that 30 days isn't enough, 60 days isn't enough to change behavior or mindset. It's really the 90 plus days. It really has to be a long investment to change habits and witness and understanding, if we're going to do that. I think that's a critical insight that y'all have that you said we're craving unity right now. And I think that we can talk about that at the national level. Everything seems to be splitting apart.
• 37:18
  Eddie Rester: Every denomination right now is breaking at some point.
• 37:23
  Eddie Rester: Families, families are being pulled apart by schedules, by kids going seven directions, you know, playing 13 travel sports by the time they're seven years old. Everybody feels the pull.
• 37:38
  Eddie Rester: And I think it gets unique that y'all are trying to put the churches from every level in the same conversation. Are there any stories from Frazer, anything, kind of how this has played itself out beyond just the the reviews?
• 37:56
  Shane Stanford: There are. There are two stories. One is a young woman in their college ministry, who had a terrible situation in the church that she grew up in, had been abused by a youth pastor, horrible story. When she went to her parents and the pastor, they said, "Don't tell anybody." And so her whole life had been kind of this idea that church, Jesus was about secrets
• 38:20
  Eddie Rester: I do remember.
• 38:23
  Eddie Rester: and about you couldn't be yourself. You couldn't tell the truth. And what she found, Chris Montgomery, who's the pastor is the one that she told. She said,"I found that I really liked Jesus. He is awesome." was her quote. And I don't know if you remember, but the church that I founded, Eddie, sat across the
• 38:44
  Shane Stanford: It was my responsibility to do a golf street from a golf course.
• 38:50
  Shane Stanford: ministry. I just had to do it, Chris. You know that's the Lord works.
• 38:54
  Eddie Rester: Yeah, well, we'll talk about your golf game before we go. We'll talk about your golf game.
• 38:59
  Shane Stanford: But when I would go over and I would get paired up, they called it the bullpen with these people. And I would keep these books called the master in my golf bag. It was just the story of John told narratively, similar to what we have with Life Along the Way series, told in a way that you walked with him. It never failed people. The first thing they would say is, "I like this guy.
• 39:19
  Shane Stanford: I really like this guy." And there was a second situation at Frazer that reminded me of John David, who was the guy that I helped it at the golf course, an older fella who had lost his wife, and he called it the casserole controversy. You know, where if you have cancer, or something goes wrong in your life, people bring you a casserole. But his wife had bipolar disorder, and she killed herself. And he said, "I did not feel like that I could talk about my wife and grieve her in my church until," he said, "I really spent time reading the death of Lazarus. And Jesus wept." He said, "I believe Jesus wept not because Lazarus had died, but because the rest of them were walking around very much alive, like they had already died." And he said, "I realized that there are no whispers in church. There should be nothing that you have to whisper about when it comes to your relationship with Jesus, with others in church." And that only... There's nothing extravagant about this. It's not going to win any war. It's very well written. I have great writers and collaborative editors that have worked on it.
• 40:42
  Shane Stanford: It is Jesus. He is the star of this show. And he is so powerful, because you get the sense that, again, talking about the incarnation at the start of this interview, he came to earth to be like us.
• 40:58
  Shane Stanford: And we heard that over and over again, Eddie, in these reviews.
• 41:03
  Shane Stanford: And I can't wait. I'm going to preach there on the 27th of November, or some some date in late November, and it's going to be a day where we pile all together, the statistics that we would have gathered over the year, it started back November 27. And so we're going to sum it up, close it up. But the thing that--and I usually tear up when I think about it--particularly young people, young couples, because they grew up in church usually with people telling them who Jesus was. And now they get a chance. They've been reading for a year for themselves. And every one of them say, "I didn't know that Jesus said that." "I didn't know that Jesus did that." And it can be simple things like, you know, something that happened at the wedding at Cana, or big things like Lazarus. And so I tell my team all the time, "Remember, Jesus doesn't need us to speak for him." All we have to do is plant the seed, create structure, the vehicles by which the gospel is said and done, and Jesus, the power of the Spirit, takes the rest of it.
• 42:13
  Eddie Rester: One of the things that I heard you, just in the stories, is just people being comfortable to name their brokenness. Whether it's the man whose wife had committed suicide, or the young woman who had been abused at church, and finally not having to whisper about it anymore. What's the place for our brokenness? Or how do we encourage people to own and know that their brokenness isn't something to just whisper about? How do we begin to help people own their stories, like you own your story?
• 42:48
  Shane Stanford: Well, I'll tell you about it. I learned more from the situation with Pokey and me and the infidelity. I learned more about that then, than I have as a person who has dealt with disease and illness and death, near death experiences, because there is a difference between the internal, physical response to things and the things that affect the relationship. And I think it is this reason. I think relationship is the image by which we are created in God.
• 43:23
  Shane Stanford: That its relationship--Father, Son, Holy Spirit. It takes three people to be born--mother, father, child. Trinity's experiences are all over, expressions are all over. And so when the relationship breaks, when something happens, betrayal happens, you begin to question the whole dynamic of how you make your way, how you take your steps in the world.
• 43:44
  Shane Stanford: And so we came out, and now Pokey and I teach seminars for marriage couples about protecting against infidelity, because, you know, I played 50% of the problem in that, you know, working all the time, at war with time, not prioritizing my family. But we also do what we call recovery trauma. You know, we have a triage program that we do for couples who are in the middle of it. And I will tell you, there is nobody better than my wife to walk into a situation like that and help people respond to that type of situation.
• 44:25
  Shane Stanford: But she'll tell you she doesn't begin with grand theories. She simply begins with the simplicity of relational exchange. How are you talking to each other? What tones are you using? How do you touch? You know, just the idea of do you slap them upside the head?
• 44:40
  Shane Stanford: That's usually she's talking to the wife about the husband. Or do you ever just go by and just place your hand on their shoulder? Nothing is sexual about it, nothing intimate in that note about it, but it is incredibly connecting, because there's a power in touch.
• 44:58
  Shane Stanford: And so when you read the gospels, think about what Jesus You probably did. Audra my wife, definitely.
• 45:02
  Shane Stanford: does in those situations, the touch, the transparency, conversation, caring about where they've been, where they're going, the essence of time, just being together in time. You We love Audra. She really is the best thing.
• 45:13
  Shane Stanford: know, Eddie, one of the things I enjoyed about when we were coming up in ministry was our little group we had, you know, Appel and Collier and you and me, and we didn't get to spend a lot of time together. But every time we would go to a conference, it felt like we would pick up right where we left off. And I've not had that sense that we all went our separate ways. I've had colleagues and situations. But I think there's something important to how that affects the way you see. I'm a much more, I think, patient person and grace-filled person, the more I've been in relationship.
• 45:51
  Shane Stanford: I'm not saying I had to show extra grace for you, or you did for me.
• 46:01
  Eddie Rester: Ask Len Sweet about Audra some time. Just see what he says.
• 46:06
  Shane Stanford: I will. I think we can put ourselves in situations where we miss the essence of that. So that in the days that come down the path, when we do feel lonely, where we do feel betrayed, when we do feel that we've been, or we're about to be on done. It's the memory of those relationships, much like the memory of the sacrament, that reminds us the power of what that means. That's why we go to the table. We gather around that table, not just for the elements, but for the fact that there was a table that all of them sat around. And that story echoes out through.
• 46:46
  Shane Stanford: And I think that we are built like that. And I think that's part of the journey.
• 46:52
  Shane Stanford: But so many people today... We have a young man in our life that all he wants to do is get out of college and make money.
• 47:00
  Shane Stanford: That's all he wants to do. And you can tell that, for one reason or another, that's the way he centered his goals, the way he wants to do life. We all know what the problem there is, but I don't have to explain it.
• 47:14
  Shane Stanford: But there will be a day when he realizes how empty that is. And that's not going to fill him up.
• 47:22
  Shane Stanford: Even if he becomes the wealthiest person on the planet.
• 47:24
  Shane Stanford: So. I don't know if I answered your question. I went off in 10 different ways.
• 47:27
  Eddie Rester: No, absolutely.
• 47:29
  Chris McAlilly: Yeah, I think the thing that... The cord that, I mean, there's several things that that run through, but just kind of remembering the places of relationship. And it's cool to hear you talk about your grandmother and just the memory of the relationship and the wisdom that you received from some of those people along the way, early in your life. And the way in which that's woven into not only your life, but your work, your vocation, your faith.
• 47:58
  Shane Stanford: Thank you.
• 47:59
  Chris McAlilly: I think the older I get, the more precious the memories I have of the communion of saints. I mean, as you were telling your story I was thinking about both Timothy's, you know, what Paul says to Timothy about the faith of his mother and grandmother living on in him. And I also just think about that, like, you know, there's a lot of the reason why... I mean, I've got pictures of my grandfather, who was a pastor prominently displayed, close to me, as I'm sitting at my desk and doing the work that I'm doing. A lot of days I feel... You know, I have his prayer kneeler. I've got some very important symbols of his life and ministry very close by. And those, on hard days, at the beginning or the end of the day, I'll often kneel there. I sense his presence. There's a sense of the communion of the saints being very much a place where you can, where there's still connection, there's still communion, and there's wisdom to be remembered there.
• 49:01
  Shane Stanford: I don't know if I should say this actually on the podcast, but I have gotten into the world of fine cigars. I love to smoke a good cigar. All my doctors are completely against it. But I waited. And I did wait 53 years to have a real vise, you know. I didn't have time for anything else. But boy.
• 49:23
  Shane Stanford: But what's interesting, my youngest daughter, who gives me a hard time about it. She said,"Dad, why do you want to do that?" And my answer was, because it reminds me of my grandfather. Being on a golf course as he would take the stogie out, you know, I mean, he did he was the type, the slobber, the whatever, slobber that would just drip down his face. I mean, it was a nasty thing that he did. But it reminded me of him, and that relationship is a defining part of my life, and it has meant so much. So she didn't really buy it, but she understood it, so.
• 50:03
  Chris McAlilly: Well, one day, one day, Eddie, you come you come up from Jackson. Shane, you come down from Memphis, and we'll all sit out on somebody's porch and smoke a cigar and we'll continue the conversation.
• 50:14
  Shane Stanford: I would absolutely love to corrupt y'all. I would love it.
• 50:17
  Eddie Rester: That would be great. Inappropriate. So Shane, thank you for your time. For the podcast, remind us the name of the podcast.
• 50:24
  Shane Stanford: Our podcast is called You Matter with Shane Stanford, and the book is called"JourneyWise: Redeeming the Broken and Winding Roads We Travel."
• 50:35
  Eddie Rester: So grab both of those. You will be glad that you did. Shane, again, thank you.
• 50:38
  Eddie Rester: Thank you. Thank you for your time. And it's been too long. We do need to catch up soon.
• 50:43
  Shane Stanford: Absolutely.
• 50:43
  Shane Stanford: Thanks so much.
• 50:45
  Chris McAlilly: Thanks, Shane.
• 50:45
  Eddie Rester: [OUTRO] Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed the podcast, the best way to help us is to like, subscribe, or leave a review.
• 50:53
  Chris McAlilly: If you would like to support this work financially or if you have an idea for a future guest you can go to theweightpodcast.com. [END OUTRO]